


Poor Skin Too Thick To Understand

by detritius



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Blood, Hannibal is Hannibal, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Poor Will, Sedation, kinda? more like hurt/comfort/hurt if such a thing exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detritius/pseuds/detritius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot from "Dolce." Hannibal helps Will to dress for dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Skin Too Thick To Understand

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped to have something on the lighter side this week, but no, Dolce kind of torpedoed that for me, so it's this today and the prologue of a longer, AU-type thing I have in the works tomorrow. Hopefully I'll recover my equanimity and my ability to write S1 and 2 fic with time.
> 
> Title taken from "Bones and Skin" by Mirah.

He can't feel anything. There isn't anything to feel.

Darkness.

Somewhere, footsteps, swallowed up by silence.

The black veil thins and there are things behind it, all crawling shadows, dim and distant. His shoulder aches. Far off, music playing faintly.

As the heavier dark falls away, fragile forms, half-real, come together. Low light and clumsy, misshaped things. A man with blurred features and an ugly, dripping wound. The blood looks black in the amber light. It smells of meat and metal. A face swims up into focus, expressionless and slack. Will's face, with barely open eyes. Spotted with more blood.

He's looking at himself in a mirror.

Discreet sounds of movement. Their direction seems to change, in front and behind and gone in their own echoes. A voice like the scratch of an old record.

"I didn't expect you to be conscious yet. You've had too many surgeries. Opiates are starting to lose their effect on you."

Hannibal. Dull surprise at his presence, and at his inability to feel very much about it.

"Are you in any pain?"

He can't move or speak. The slow blink of his eyes plunges him into blackness, holds him under, doesn't let him drown. The darkness, now, he wants to let it take him, drag him away from Hannibal. He can only look straight ahead, his reflection watching him with darkened, glassy eyes. 

"I'll take that as a no."

Hannibal leans down, the bulk of him obscuring Will's vision. Smell of disinfectant, and the ache in his shoulder changes to a sting. Pain giving way to pressure. When Hannibal straightens, the reflection has changed, a clean white square where the wound was. The two of them arrayed within the frame.

"There's nothing more I can do for this, but soon it won't matter." Hannibal's lips stop moving before meaning can materialize behind the words. "Put your head back."

When he can't, Hannibal does it for him, and his vision tilts so all he can see is the ceiling. A touch at his throat. He would scream if he could scream, fight if he could fight.

He can move his eyes.

Their reflections are low in his field of view, but he can see them and try to make sense. See what Hannibal's doing to him.

The touch is that of a cool cloth, at his neck, sweeping across his jaw and nose and cheeks, at his brow and hairline. Scent of citrus and lavender. Water droplets lingering on the skin of his face. 

Hannibal finger-combs his hair into neatness. "I intend this to be a big moment for you, Will. One you'll remember for the rest of your life." He's stirring something now, painting it in long white strokes down Will's neck. "You should look your best."

He moans when he sees the straight razor, and squeezes his eyes shut.

"Don't be afraid." The rasp of the blade against his skin. "When I intend to hurt you, Will, you'll know it." The lather is warm and sweet-smelling, the razor less than a scrape, its sound more grating. "Try to relax. This need not be an unpleasant experience for you."

His eyes blink open, and he watches Hannibal shaving him, his neck, close under his jaw, careful and methodical. Gentle. More lather smoothed on his cheekbones and beneath his lower lip, Hannibal's fingertips coated with it. His other hand, cupping Will's jaw, is an anchor. Hannibal hums as he works, along with the distant music, contouring the stubble on Will's face and making him look clean and presentable. The cloth returns, wiping away the last of the lather, and then Hannibal's exploring his face like a blind man, stroking and cradling, brushing his thumb across Will's lips. When fingers rasp against the grain of his remaining stubble, Will's naked arms break into goosebumps. He manages a moan of protest.

Hannibal pulls away, caught in a furtive act. He gathers up his implements and turns his back to Will, and Will's left staring at himself, subtly altered.

His world goes white as Hannibal pats him dry.

At last, as the towel's being pulled away, he finds his voice. "Why are you doing this?" Barely a whisper, and every word is an effort.

"This is how I want to remember you."

Will nods as if that was what he expected and closes his eyes again. Did he always know that it would come to this?

Hannibal pulls the chair beneath him back, and momentum slumps him over. Unable to support himself, he's bent nearly double, and he struggles fitfully to sit up. "Shhh, shhh. Don't resist." Something draped over his shoulders, and Hannibal guides him into it, easing him back. "Can you lift your arms?"

Just one at a time, and for a few inches only, but that seems to satisfy. Cloth maneuvered over his hands and up his arms, Hannibal leaning over him, doing up buttons, straightening his collar. "There," he breathes, and Will feels it against his cheek.

He looks at their reflections, him battered but well-groomed and dressed now in a crisp white shirt, Hannibal, shadowed, looming behind him. The scent of soap and clean linen lingers around them both. 

"This is how you want me?"

"No." Hannibal smooths an errant curl behind his ear. "You'll know soon how I want you."

A prick of pain at the base of his neck, and the whole world starts to soften.

"Rest awhile longer, Will. There are things I need to do."

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me partly as a reference to another fictional cannibal, but I was also looking at screencaps for my other project, and I noticed something: it appears that Hannibal, for his own inscrutable reasons, did change Will's shirt, wash his face, and neaten up his hair before attempting to crack his head open. I know there's a logical rl reason for the discrepancy, probably something to do with scenes being shot on different days of production, and possibly a continuity person not being on the ball, but in-universe, I'm not sure what it can come to down besides Hannibal being a weirdo.
> 
> Also, apparently I kink hard for Hannibal doing things to Will while he's unconscious, sedated, or otherwise unable to consent. Clearly there's some stuff wrong with me, but you know, whatever.
> 
> Tune in tomorrow for an attempt at gen and plot!


End file.
